The Top 10 Marvel Movies... Ranked For Your Viewing Pleasure

Over the past month I’ve been in a Marvel binge. Mainly, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s super popular right now, and part of me feels like all these movies that are being made just for me are being sullied by all these other millions of people watching and enjoying them.

I mean, they’re mine. I get to enjoy them, not other people.

Regardless, they’re out there now and part of me doesn’t want to like them anymore. Whatever, I can like popular things.

The point of all this is that phase II is almost complete. And as such, I feel like it’s time for me to weigh in on the MCU by ranking the movies. Yay.

Understand that I’m specifically discussing the movies produced by Marvel/Disney, so there isn’t going to be any X-Men, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, or other, older iterations of movies here (Like the myriad of Punisher films, Daredevil, Elektra, Howard the Duck, the Ang Lee version of the Hulk, etc).

Without Further Ado, here they are, ranked:

The Flawed:

10) The Incredible Hulk – This says a lot to me that I went as the Hulk for Halloween every year of my life (That I bothered to dress up). Well, there was the year I went as a punk rocker, but that was my first year going to a party instead of trick-or-treating, I thought I was supposed to dress as something more sophisticated. Turns out I was just dressing as a woman, a sophisticated woman, but still… where was I? Oh yes, So it says a lot to me that my dream of actually one day becoming the Hulk, that his rage fueled outbursts were my ideal of the perfect hero, means that I am biased to like this movie more than it has any right to be liked.

Turns out, I do like it. It’s just the least among equals. Or to put it another way, it’s not as good as the rest of the Marvel movies. Ed Norton played Banner without the charisma that Ruffalo did in the Avengers, and the fx was pretty cool, but the showdown between the Hulk and Abomination descended a bit into a cartoon fight after a nice beginning. Nice, not memorable.

I'd read that once Marvel got the rights back to the Hulk, they hired the director (I forget his name) and told him that the release date was in one year. There was no script ready, so they had to go into production as it was being written. In the end I think they movie suffered for it. I worry that Marvel learned the wrong lesson here (which is, 'people don't want the Hulk', not, 'make sure you have a great story to tell')

9) Iron Man 2 – watched this a few weeks ago, I was looking for my copy of Iron Man, but it disappeared at some point. It’s one of the only Marvel movies I have on DVD, and a few years ago I decided to start keeping the Blu-ray movies separate from the DVD movies. I’ve neglected the DVD selection and the kids have moved stuff, people have borrowed things, it’s been lost. But good ‘ol Iron Man 2 was sitting right where it was supposed to be on the Blu-ray shelf, so I picked it up and realized I hadn’t seen it in a few years. I remembered it fondly so I thought I could live with seeing it again.

Like The Hulk movie above, this one has its moments. But also like the Hulk movie, I’m not sure I was on board with the climax. Really, the thing about Tony building an amusement park in honor of his father seemed weird to me. The development of the transuranic element to cure the palladium ailment was cool as an idea, but didn’t work for me narratively. Still, the first 2/3^rds of this movie are pretty great. dug the introduction of the Black Widow, and am happy that Emily Blunt (whom I love) had to drop out of the role at the last minute.

The Fun:

8) Thor 2: The Dark World – By the time this movie came out, I’d already been seeing trailers for Captain America 2 (I think), and had had a hard time focusing on this as anything but a distraction. Despite this movie being perfectly cast, and finally, Thor not looking like a dope with his long hair (it just worked in this movie), I enjoyed this, but couldn’t find anything about it that elevated it beyond what I subtitled this section as: Fun.

And this character was probably my third hero worshiped character in comics (after Superman, then The Hulk – If comics serve as wish fulfillment, then I clearly have a god complex). I never dressed up as him for Halloween, but I probably drew more made up comics with him as the star than any other heroes.

This movie’s villain really let me down, the first movie had Loki, and although I like Chris Eccleston (It’s easy to forget his short run as the Doctor) this might have been the weakest villain of any of the Marvel movies. And the Aether was a poorly defined artifact, I think. I don’t know. I remind you that I liked it, more than either of the previous movies on this list. It didn’t quite give me what I needed to feel like it lived up to its potential.

The Good:

7) Thor – Huh, didn’t mean to put this one next, but I don’t know what else I would put below it. But I do think there is a bit of a separation from Thor 2 and the first one. This one had Loki as the villain, and a better plot. The destroyer battle at the end was so lackluster that I feel like either they’d run out of money for fx, or the director was so bored with the thought of more action that he just said, ‘take 30 seconds and do whatever the hell you want’ to the fx house.

Still, emotionally, this one hit all the right marks. I think it was really good.

6) Iron Man 3 – This one is where I started to believe that Marvel was making an effort to just not repeat itself with its movies. This was a… what? A spy movie? No, but it didn’t feel like a typical superhero tale either.

This was, for me, a very enjoyable flick, a good one. I know some people have taken issue with the misuse of the Mandarin. It didn't really bother me, I tend not to be too precious about things as long as I enjoy the movie. In this case, Marvel did throw a bone to the upset contingent of fans over the Mandrin thing by offering the Marvel One-Shot that dealt with that thorny issue rather well. If you've got 15 minutes and you haven't seen it, I just did you a HUGE favor by pasting it below. You're welcome.

But back to the movie, look, it wasn't perfect. It felt like it was just a tad too long, but damn. It was better than the second Iron Man movie by miles. 

The Great:

5) Captain America - I feel like there is another big step in quality here. The thing about this movie, for me, is that when I first saw it at the theater, I liked it, but didn't find it that special. It was months later, sitting at home, and enjoying it on my telly that I realized its brilliance. I have no explanation for that. Sometimes movies just grow on you. Now I probably pop this bad boy in and watch it about once every two months or so. 

Funny that, as a character, I always struggled with trying to figure out how you tell the story of the ultimate boy scout. I mean, he has no flaws, or if he does, it's that he cares too much, tries too hard, and loves too strongly. But, again, someone figured it out. Chris Evans owns the character so much that I feel like the versions I see of him in the comic are no longer the real 'cap' but instead, the movie versions are. 

Also, I did have plenty of Captain America comics in my collection as a kid, but it wasn't a monthly read for me. Still, within the Marvel Universe, he is venerated by all the other heroes, and everyone looks to him for leadership when the chips are down. I'd follow this guy into battle too (as long as by 'Battle' you mean Pizza Hut or something, it's not like I have a death wish). The movie captures it perfectly. 

I feel like of all the heroes Marvel has brought to screen though, they've struggled the most with his uniform. I liked the one he ended up with through the latter half of the movie. Don't know why they didn't keep that costume for the Avengers movie (where the one they went with looked ridiculously stupid).  

4) Iron Man - The truth is that I probably had less than 5 issues of Iron Man as a kid. I did have the Demon in the Bottle issue, and a two parter where he fought the Hulk. Other than that, I only read him if he crossed over with other titles I read. But I was pretty familiar with him. I did read the Avengers comic every month, and he was always there. A lot of my love for this movie has to do with the casting of Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark, as soon as I heard about it I thought it was perfect, and then I saw the movie and realized it was better than I thought. 

Dump trucks of money for that guy. No one else can ever be him. Also, the movie was pretty good. I liked John Favreau as a director, and think he made the perfect movie as an introduction to the MCU. 

The Legendary:

3) The Avengers - Hard to believe that earlier this year I might have picked this as the best comic book movie ever made. Now it's only #3 on the list of Marvel films. 

Stupid Costume

That's not to detract from this movie though. It took all these characters that were the leads in their own films and made this giant ensemble out of it. Yes, Captain America's costume became super stupid looking, and Hawkeye did sorta get shafted, and yes, the aliens were a little generic. But this movie worked. And it worked really well. 

Like Captain America, I watch this one every couple of months. And when I do, I get all giddy. True story here. When I was a kid, I used to lay in bed at night and imagine what a live action Avengers movie might be like. I tried to envision what actors and actresses could fill the iconic roles.* 

Aside from the atrociously disgusting Captain America costume, this thing is, literally, the movie I dreamed about as a child. It didn't disappoint. I nearly wept watching it, and can't sit down to watch it without dreaming of a time-travel device that can transport me back in time to show young me this movie. 

See what I mean about that costume Cap wears?

2) The Guardians of the Galaxy - I waffled on whether or not this should be number 1 on this list, but the fact is that I don't really know about how I feel about a movie, really, until it's here in my house and I can watch it any time I want to. After multiple viewings, do the little nitpicky things really start to bother me, or do I just fall more and more deeply in love with it? 

Only time will tell, but like the Avengers, this is a group effort, and proof that Marvel is being as smart as they can about who they let direct their films. I know Edgar Wright, one of my favorite directors, dropped out of Ant-Man, but I can't really gauge how big a blunder than might be until I see the movie. All I know is what I've already seen, and on this, I think Marvel's midas touch is about letting directors make a movie that they want to make. And hopefully learning that lesson from the Hulk movie that wasn't so good. 

Chris Pratt was one of my favorite guys from Parks and Recreation, and putting him in this role was brilliant. It's tone was so different than the Captain America film from a few months earlier. My wife said she spent the movie alternating between laughter and weeping. I can't really comment on the details of the movie, as they all blur together for me right now. But I'm looking forward to watching it repeatedly after it's December release on Blu-ray. 

1) Captain America: The Winter Soldier - Almost a perfect movie. Period. I'd heard somewhere that Marvel is bringing in people who want to make a 'type' of movie, and then letting them use the Marvel characters to tell that story. I don't know how much truth there is to that, but clearly, this was a conspiracy thriller. It could have been told with almost anyone, jamming it into the Cap story was just brilliant. 

It had some of the best action scenes I've seen on film, the violence had emotional beats, and the characters where put through Hell. My only complain is that, again, Cap's uniform wasn't quite right. I liked the muted, combat costume he wore early on, but for some reason, stealing his WWII costume from the museum for the final conflict didn't work as well for me. Maybe because the bright colors didn't mesh with the earthy tones the rest of the flick had. 

Also, his shield seemed to disappear and reappear throughout the movie, but was always painted to match his costume. I found that weird. 

And like a few other of the Marvel movies, the best action sequences took place earlier in the movie. From Nick Fury's street chase, Cap's escape from Shield, or the brawl with The Winter Soldier in downtown... all of them were better than the final fight he had on the helicarrier. The Falcon's part was awesome, as was The Black Widow's... only Cap was a bit of a letdown, although only a bit, it still had high emotional stakes.

Quibbles though. I've watched this movie more times in the past month than I think I've seen any movie since I was in my early twenties. I watched it while on vacation. I've seen it on my phone twice, I watched it at least six times on my television. I just can't get enough of it. 

And there you have it. A long, rambly post filled with my opinions of stuff that doesn't matter. Hope someone else got something out it. I did have fun writing it. 

*In case you just have to know, circa 1985 I would have chosen for the movie version of the Avengers:

The Hulk/Banner - Lou Ferrigno/Michael J Fox 
Thor - Arnold Schwarzenegger
Captain America - Rob Lowe
Iron Man - Steve Guttenberg
Black Widow - Demi Moore
Hawkeye - Bill Murray (because I wanted him in EVERY movie at the time)

Top 10 Movies Ever... Except Not Really

Alex J Cavanaugh hosted this amazing top 10 movie countdown today. I'm a bit late to the party. Some unexpected things happened late last week that prevented me from even doing an almost awesome version of this. I had intended on doing this as the Top 10 moments from crappy movies (Because I accidentally gave a real top 10 countdown a few weeks ago. Don't know why), with clips of scenes and all that sort of stuff. But after spending the last several days knee deep in emergency home improvements I’m going to have to give you plan ‘B’, The top 10 movies I like that most people seem to hate.

10: Waterworld – Look, I didn’t love this movie, but I did kinda like it. The jet-ski baddies led by Dennis Hopper were a bit cheesy, but I think this movie was more the victim of its budget than what appeared on screen.

9: Green Lantern – Yes, it sucked. But it sucked awesomely. I was pulling my hair out watching this, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t enjoy it anyway. I loved that the Lantern Corp begged Hal to take up the ring and use it and he refused. Then he traveled x number of lightyears later to ask their permission to use the ring… which they had been begging him to use. Not much of this movie made sense. But Awesome!

8: Transformers – Anyone besides me remember when people spoke fondly of this movie? It seems like people have turned on this franchise in a major way. I don’t know what folks expect, it’s about robots that turn into cars and planes and cassette players, then fight robot wars here on earth… they aren’t remaking Casablanca with each installment. So, there is a lot of hate for people over the age of 8 for these movies, but again… fun – even if they tend to be 45 minutes too long.

7: Matrix 2 and 3 – I know, I’m cheating. Look, the first movie was pretty great. It was an original film – they pioneered that bullet time thing, they took a pretty sci-fi concept and didn’t dumb it down (much). The humans are Duracell batteries rationale seemed very stupid to me, but with that aside, great movie…. Everyone agreed (weird that it came out around the same time as Existenz and The Thirteenth Floor, movies that had a similar concept), so the sequels came out and the Wachowski’s were given blank checks to go and create whatever their 'vision' dictated. The movies suffered for it. They were under no pressure to please anyone and I think it showed. Really long spells of exposition punctuated by really long action sequences… both of which were convoluted and unnecessarily… well, long . But despite that, I enjoyed the movies. Again, they did try to give a truly science fictional story its due. These movies were ambitious, and they barely failed in my opinion. I’d like to reward that type of risk-taking when I can. So they make my list.

6: Constantine – Actually, do people like hate this? It’s more like a movie that disappeared than people actually hated. I really like it, and it might be one of my favorites on this list. I’m a bit of a sucker for any heaven vs hell flick, rogue angels and all that sort of stuff – I liked the Prophecy movies with Christopher Walken. I even liked that one that came out a couple of years ago about the biblical apocalypse happening at that diner in the southwest.  I think this is the best of the bunch when it comes to this sort of thing though. It made me want to read the comic.

5: Electra – They took a movie that very few people liked, Daredevil, and spun off a movie from that. Wow. The hate for Electra is pretty thick. Me, I liked it. It was like an episode of a television show that I love. It was familiar, not too ambitious, and felt very episodic. I think it worked. I personally feel like so much of the hate comes from people who enjoy the source material, I’ve gotten pretty zen about that sort of thing over the years and try not to hold it against a movie that goes off course in that area – as long as it seems to work.

4: The Last Action Hero – this Auh-nuld flick followed up T2 and had some high expectations. It was about an action movie icon that got pulled straight from the movie screen into real life. I thought it was awesome. I think the gritty, ‘real’ world contrasted too much with the quippy, ‘movie’ world for most… it was a jarring change. But it was unique. Worth watching.

3: Dylan Dog – I saw this in the theater when it came out and hated it. But I kept kicking it around in my head afterwards, I think the premise got me excited enough that I eventually forgave it’s multitude of sins and started to enjoy it for what it is: a cheaply made crapfest of awesome. It’s on Netflix now, so have a few drinks to lower your critical thinking skills, lower your expectations… a lot… then enjoy.

2: Mortal Combat – I don’t know if this is hated as much as forgotten, or never noticed. But this video game movie from the 90’s was the best American made kung fu movie of its time (pre-matrix). Like a few others on this list, technically, it’s stupid. Stupid characters do stupid things for stupid reasons. But, also like other movies on this list, it was awesome. It was also notable that, in an ensemble film, the clear leading man was Asian…. I can’t recall seeing that in many American movies before then (I’m being kind, I couldn’t think of any since Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon). It’s something I didn’t notice at the time, but have realized upon reflection. I haven’t seen this movie in a long time, so I’m sure my memories are fuzzy, but I can’t recall if he had a love interest, I think that there was one given to Johnny Cage, which was bad, because that character had no charisma at all… I can’t actually remember though, so I should probably just stop typing about that. Also, there has been a youtube series that has revived the Mortal Combat franchise in live action. It’s truly epic.*

1: John Carter – I’m actually not sure what public opinion on this movie is, really, but I think this is the best film of the bunch. It works in all the ways an action movie should. It’s great fun, and it’s another one that’s a beauty to look at. Like Waterworld, its budget was a bigger story than the movie itself, and a series of marketing missteps that are almost worthy if their own movie, doomed this thing from right after production began. The studio did nothing to quash rumors that this had a ballooning budget and were knee deep in desperate reshoots to try to fix the story – despite the fact that the production kept to its budget (granted, it was $250 mil) and all those reshoots were planned (because Stanton, the number 2 guy at Pixar, who directed this, believed the first round of shoots were a rough draft, and reshoots were where you really get to see the movie become great – the Pixar way!) – and so it was labeled a disaster long before anyone had a chance to see it.

How badly did Disney screw John Carter? So much that a whole book was written about it. It will leave you befuddled at the perfect storm of events that conspired to make this a flop.

And there you have it…

*The recent Mortal Combat series stars Michael Jai White, who is responsible for the greatest single kung fu kick I think I’ve ever seen on film, granted, I may have been drinking heavily when I saw it, but it appeared in one of those Universal Soldier movies… it was the one that starred him.